We've had the chance to play around with the new redesigned iPod Touch 5 for nearly a week now, and our impressions of Apple's most fun gadget thus far are thoroughly positive with very little negatives. Our impressions start off on the negative side, but quickly turn into sweet goodness below:

Apple decided to scrap the affordable 16GB storage capacity in favor of 32GB as an entry-level starting point which brings up the initial price of the iPod Touch 5 up to $299. Not cool. The iPod Touch 5 is only available in 32GB and 64GB capacities for $299 and $399. And while we like the new camera design, the metal lens protrudes making the iPod unbalanced on a flat surface.

This might be considered nitpicking, but the included EarPods don't have a simple remote to control music and volume. $300 and Apple couldn't toss in a proper set of EarPods with a device that focuses on music and multimedia? Nonetheless, we tested the EarPods and found them to be better than your average pair of earphones bundled with competing devices. Lastly, Apple neglected to include an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the screen brightness because of how thin the device is. It is ridiculously thin will give it that. Not a deal breaker though.

Apple's new and beautifully groundbreaking redesigned iPod Touch 5 is full of awesomeness. We never thought past generations of the iPod Touch could compete against the iPhone for various reasons, but that has now completely changed. The 2012 iPod Touch is noticeably snappier and responsive this time around. Loading photos, apps and general web browsing is up to par with the speedy iPhone 5. iO6 runs silky smooth on this thing and that goes without saying.

includes a large 4-inch display and a usable 5-megapixel back facing camera with LED flash plucked right from the iPhone 4 and upgraded with a sapphire crystal lens, 5-element optics and better low-light performance. Another much needed improvement was done to the front facing camera which now shoots 720p HD video and 1.2-megapixel photos for FaceTiming and self portraits. That alone is an enticing feature that could replace your old point-n-shoot camera from a few years ago.

Price: $299 for 32GB and $399 for 64GB
Dimensions: 4.86 × 2.31 × 0.24-inches
Weight: 3.10 ounces
Connections: Lightning connector, 3.5mm headphone jack
Display: 4-inch Retina IPS display (1136×640), 326 ppi
Cameras: Autofocus 5-megapixel iSight f/2.4 five-element lens, LED flash, 1080p video recording; front FaceTime HD, 1.2-megapixel
Battery: 40 hours of audio, 8 hours of video
Processor: A5, dual-core
Memory: 512 MB
Internal Storage: 32GB and 64GB
Wi-Fi: 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz)
Bluetooth: 4.0
What else?: Includes EarPods with no remote, color matching touch loop - available in 6 colors (slate with black display, gray, pink, yellow, blue and red with white display

This is without a doubt the best iPod Touch model ever made, and we think it should also win the award for best portable multimedia and gaming device. The 4-inch display is dead gorgeous. It's in fact the same amazing, entirely reachable with your thumb IPS Retina display with the resolution of 1136x640 the iPhone 5 has making it a much respected opponent when faced against the iPhone. No matter what angle you view it from, the iPod Touch 5's display looks super sharp, very bright and contrasty to the point where you won't want to take your eyes off of it. The new taller display is perfect for watching movies now, and as soon as app developers updates their apps to take advantage of the extra screen real estate, gaming on this will be amazing. There's more iPod Touch 5 awesomeness after the cut!

As we reported in these past few weeks of new cases suggesting a drastically redesigned iPhone 5, more details have now surfaced showing exactly how big of a change there is between the redesigned iPhone 5 against the current iPhone 4. By the looks of it, the purported iPhone 5 case above points to a wider and slightly longer iPad 2 and iPod Touch 4G-like form factor with a relocated silent switch.

We could be totally off the guessing game though.This case might even suggest a newly redesigned iPod Touch 5G with a large screen while keeping its steep contoured design. It would make sense for Apple to enlarge the screen size of their beloved portable gaming device. I don't feel like ditching the blocky design of the iPhone 4 for the more iPod Touch 4G-like design makes sense because of how less comfortable it is to hold. You can see a lot more comparisson photos over at Macitynet.